Functional Medicine

[hurray]

Wikipedia's articles are not always completely neutral, but they are usually rooted in truth, and they have citations to back up what they say. Here's Wikipedia's opening statement about functional medicine:

Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses a number of unproven and disproven methods and treatments. Its proponents claim that it focuses on the "root causes" of diseases based on interactions between the environment and the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems to develop "individualized treatment plans." It has been described as pseudoscience, quackery, and at its essence a rebranding of complementary and alternative medicine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_medicine

Is it unfair to describe functional medicine as "quackery" and "pseudoscience"? It seems a remarkably strong statement for an encyclopedia to make.

[Warrior]

To be fair it does say "it has been described as pseudoscience..", and not directly stating it.

Functional medicine is definitely legit. Obviously, you are going to get bad functional medicine people, just like you get bad doctors.

A doctor offered me antihistamines and antibiotics, one of which a side effect can cause semen to stop being released. That was the only thing he could offer up in relation to my POIS. The only "medical support" he could give. Wasn't even interested in checking bloods, inquiring about heavy metals, diet, etc. His advice was pretty appalling really, yet he is called a "specialist" .

A functional medicine guy I saw advised me to get a series of blood tests done, begin taking specific supplements to address potential causes, and inquired about my diet and lifestyle. He also had an online portal with lots of different protocols that I had to begin/follow including a leaky gut protocol, histamine & mast cell protocol, and a gene test protocol. He was much more enthusiastic about getting to the root of my issue, and it really felt like he was checking multiple potential root causes.

With that all being said, I stopped going to the functional medicine guy because it was too costly and I feel like I've self-diagnosed my condition (autoimmunity/leakygut/diet related). I will probably go see him again in the future to inquire about a few things.

I am basically in remission now from POIS:
* Animal-based (meat & fruit) diet, sometimes a few AIP foods to add variety & flavour
* Raw garlic
* Fenugreek

All natural solutions, which I am so grateful for. Pains me to think if I didn't have this forum or the internet, I probably would only try antihistamines and antibiotics at the doctors request.

[hurray]

To be fair it does say "it has been described as pseudoscience..", and not directly stating it.

Functional medicine is definitely legit. Obviously, you are going to get bad functional medicine people, just like you get bad doctors.

A doctor offered me antihistamines and antibiotics, one of which a side effect can cause semen to stop being released. That was the only thing he could offer up in relation to my POIS. The only "medical support" he could give. Wasn't even interested in checking bloods, inquiring about heavy metals, diet, etc. His advice was pretty appalling really, yet he is called a "specialist" .

A functional medicine guy I saw advised me to get a series of blood tests done, begin taking specific supplements to address potential causes, and inquired about my diet and lifestyle. He also had an online portal with lots of different protocols that I had to begin/follow including a leaky gut protocol, histamine & mast cell protocol, and a gene test protocol. He was much more enthusiastic about getting to the root of my issue, and it really felt like he was checking multiple potential root causes.

With that all being said, I stopped going to the functional medicine guy because it was too costly and I feel like I've self-diagnosed my condition (autoimmunity/leakygut/diet related). I will probably go see him again in the future to inquire about a few things.

I am basically in remission now from POIS:
* Animal-based (meat & fruit) diet, sometimes a few AIP foods to add variety & flavour
* Raw garlic
* Fenugreek

All natural solutions, which I am so grateful for. Pains me to think if I didn't have this forum or the internet, I probably would only try antihistamines and antibiotics at the doctors request.

Good point about them not directly saying it, although the overall tone of the article is very negative. One things that is in favor of functional medicine people is that they will actually sit down and listen to your problems, as you point out 

There are definitely a lot of things that conventional medicine can't yet explain, but are the practitioners of functional medicine really decades ahead of their time, blazing a trail that conventional medicine will eventually follow? Or will their ideas be debunked due to a lack of empirical evidence that they actually work?

Great to hear that you are in remission from POIS now, I had a lot of success with fenugreek myself.